Irma makeup plan in the works for Lee County schools

Lee County Public Schools only have to make up nine hurricane days instead of the 11 they missed because of Hurricane Irma. The Florida Department of Education waived two days for the district.

No final decision has been made yet about how they'll make up that missed time, but several options are on the table.

School officials are calling this the biggest crisis of lost time in the district's history.

The Lee County Teachers Association on Tuesday proposed adding minutes to the school day for staff but not for students.

"Changing the status of some days and adding maybe some time onto each day," said Mark Castellano, president of the association.

"We have missed more days, I think, than ever in, at least, modern Lee County School District history. This is the largest crisis in terms of the amount of days it has impacted this district has ever encountered,” said Superintendent Gregory Adkins.

The school system has to balance out time somehow for teachers. Elongating their remaining days is a more appealing option to the teachers union.

"They want to avoid disrupting the Thanksgiving break, the spring break, and I know nobody has a stomach for wanting to add a lot of days to the end of the year," Castellano said.

A Lee County spokesperson suggested another option of making early dismissal days into full days. Lauren Stillwell told us she believes it is more likely the district will find extra days in the existing school calendar instead of making the actual days longer.

Lee County Schools is running bus routes this week to check on stops that may be blocked by debris or have issues.

Drivers will report on any route changes that need to happen before students return on September 25.